


Redemption

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Intimacy, Longing, M/M, Rough Sex, delcarations of love, implied harm, mentions of hospitalization, mentions of incarceration, mentions of past violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 17:15:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This was before, before the gentle grazes of fingers through the bars, before the not-so-gentle tugging of clothes and nail-marks and fevered kisses.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Before.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>This is now.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>And Matt can only hope.</i>
</p>
<p>Matthew Brown escapes from prison to find Will after Hannibal leaves him to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redemption

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syracuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syracuse/gifts).



> The darling [harpsichordian](http://harpsichordian.tumblr.com/) requested a story with no dialog, where Matthew and Will reunite after prison and hospital for some desperate, adoring, longing, loving sex.
> 
> Here you are, love, we hope you like it!

It’s a long fucking walk from Baltimore to Wolf Trap.

Days, really. It’s been two days skirting through the woods with the road in earshot but out of sight. He managed to find a creek to wash the blood from his hands, and thought better of running it over the hole still trickling scarlet-black from his shoulder. Fish piss in that thing, animals fall in it and die, and Matthew’s been a nurse long enough to know at least a few things about sanitary precautions.

Better to just let it bleed.

The cops were faster to respond than he thought they would be, but Matt figures it comes with the territory of being branded as _unstable_ and _dangerous_ and having a _history of violent behavior_ and who knows what else they’ve slapped into his file at this point. It doesn’t matter. It stopped mattering the moment he broke the night guard’s neck with quick hands through the bars and used the man’s keys to let himself out.

They’d been friends, once. Probably were still, up until the moment that cartilage crackled like popcorn and his body fell like a bag of dirty hospital towels to the ground.

The house appears like a dream. Maybe it is, and the shot that sunk into his shoulder caught closer to his heart than he thought - that’s where it hurts now, a painful pressure beneath his ribs with every beat that carries him closer to the big white house in the big empty field. Matt rubs a hand against his chest and forces his steps to carry him closer, quickly, if only to clear sight of the road.

He’d be hard to miss in his prison clothes, let alone soaked in blood down the front. He doubts anyone would particularly care that most of it’s his own.

He can hear the dogs before he sees them, remembers Will telling him about them, all seven, when he had his back pressed to the wall and his head back against it, wrists limp against his knees and somewhere far away in his mind where Matt couldn’t reach him. This was before, before the gentle grazes of fingers through the bars, before the not-so-gentle tugging of clothes and nail-marks and fevered kisses.

Before.

This is now.

And Matt can only hope.

The dogs bark and scratch at the door, happy whines to be let outside, no snarling over a threat, no growling to protect their territory. Matt wonders, not for the first time, if dogs are wired to understand, if they are intrinsically able to sense when there is no threat from a person to them. He wishes people were the same. He wishes people made that much sense.

He makes it to the door and turns his back against the wall beside it, as the dogs continue their whining, scratching, until Will makes his way to it to look out. He sees the forest, sees the empty road, sees nothing at all. The lock clicks open, screen door hinges squeaking as the dogs are released and pour forward to the porch, around Matt, down the stairs, over the path he had taken to get here.

He waits for Will to move, for Will to follow, and when he does it’s immediate, a pivot on his foot, from wall to just before the door, and he’s against him, so near, so real, that it’s all Matt can do to set his hands against familiar cheeks and kiss him.

Will stiffens, natural response, but doesn’t fight, doesn’t back up, doesn’t call the dogs with gestures and clicks to help him. It takes a moment, just one, and then he makes a sound, little and needy. Matt pulls back, lips parting to speak, and finds them snared again by Will’s own, desperate and deep, a consummation of so much patience, half-filled memories and hollowed hearts. Will grips him and sets on foot back, just enough to balance them, and kisses Matt like it’s the end of the world.

It might as well be. Maybe they’re both dead, bullets and knives and too long apart. Maybe this is the few minutes heaven they’ve been granted out of some celestial pity for all that they’ve done.

He’ll take it.

Matt bears Will back, forcing the man to take steps into the house, spreading their mouths together, closed, open, tongues tangling as their hands grip each others’ hair as if to stop the other from being pulled away again. He snares Will around the waist to stop him from bending, to press them close together, and doesn’t tear his lips away even when Will sets a hand to his shoulder and jerks it away again when he feels how Matt bleeds for him.

He decides they’re only still alive when his heart’s going to burst and his lungs burn, and they separate gasping, silent but for the sound of panting breaths shared so close it’s as if they were never apart. Will has grown thin, in face and body, in spirit too, maybe, considering how tightly he holds to Matt’s uninjured shoulder. Without asking - because what is there to say? - Matt lets his hand hover over Will’s stomach.

An apology, as if by his own crushing regret alone he might somehow undo all the harm his failure caused.

Will watches, eyes down as Matt’s are, to his hand smeared still with blood, fingers familiar, the softness and kindness and pleasure of them still there, still warm as though that had never faded. As though time and circumstance hadn’t torn them apart and made them this.

He breathes in, holds it, and waits as Matt’s fingers press gently to the shirt, then bend to push it up against his knuckles, careful, so careful, to lift the fabric without ever touching Will. The moment seems to drag forever as Matt takes in the damage and pain Will wears now, the damage and pain that he had caused because he had not killed that man, had not, when Will had asked him to, had whispered it breathless in his ear through the bars with cool conviction.

He winces when Matt touches it, though the pain has long gone from the area, the blood long ago spilled and replaced. He winces because it is a vulnerability, a show of weakness to a man who had held him in such high regard.

Will leans closer to press his cheek to Matt’s, to turn his head to rub their noses together, like animals greeting each other after too long apart.

_I am here, you are here, we are fine._

_We are fine._

The allowance granted by this tenderness is all Matt needs to splay his hand across Will’s scar. He won’t avoid it. He won’t pretend it isn’t there. He is not disgusted by it or frightened of it or anything but as worshipful as he’s ever been of every part of Will Graham he’s ever been allowed to know. A newspaper passed to him by the same man whose neck Matt snapped is where he first saw the image, Lounds’ disgusting predation - not predation, no, _scavenging_ like a fucking catfish through the mire. Will looked pale even rendered in black and white, his wound on display where Lounds must have peeled back the sheet to reveal it, a dark streak soaked through bandages curving from ribs to hip.

It was that moment, fingers pressed against the newsprint, that Matt knew he had to find him.

It is this moment, fingers pressed against Will’s stomach, that Matt knows he was right.

Will twists out of his thin undershirt when Matt tugs it over his head, biting back the pain that pulls him pale from lifting his shoulder. He swallows Will’s concern beneath another smoldering kiss, rubbing his scar with one hand, the other trembling against a soft-scruffed cheek. He worships.

And Will is worshiped.

His own hands find the zip to Matt’s overalls, prison-issue and filthy with blood and whatever else he had run through to get here.

On foot.

Through the cold, and the dangers of being found and pulled back, and bleeding out in the middle of nowhere-woods between Baltimore and Wolf Trap.

Will works the zipper down and brings his hands, gentle, to soothe the fabric from Matt’s shoulders. He pushes cool fingers beneath Matt’s undershirt and spreads them over his stomach, over the hard muscle there, over the ink Will has tasted and touched and nosed against countless nights when the cameras were off and the lights not functional. Will starts to peel the shir tup, reluctantly pulls back to remove the thing and grins when he’s yanked back, chest to chest, and works his elbows up to rest on Matt’s shoulders, to hold him closer still.

Their hearts beat too quickly, both dizzy from the air they give the other from their lungs. Blood slicks warm between them and neither care, Matt for the pain and Will for the mess, when they can thread fingers through hair instead, curl hands to fists and tug each other where they stand, legs shuffled together as both hold balance.

Any breath they draw to speak is caught beneath the other’s kiss. Any words they might manage fall away beneath hands that move fast now, freeing the other from pants and jumpsuit, frantic, furious in their need. For all Matt knows, the cops have this place staked out, and they’re waiting for backup to come in and take him down. For all Matt cares…

...fuck ‘em.

The bullet stuck in his shoulder works deeper with a fresh gout of blood when Matt ducks to snare Will by the back of his legs, hoisting him with a laugh. He tilts his head up - he accepts Will’s kisses and gentle hands like turning his face to the sun’s warmth. Stolen time and stolen touches have defined them, always. Why should it be any different now?

Matt drops back onto the bed first, a moment of surprise in finding it in the living room but too distracted, too beholden to ask, instead watching dark-eyed as Will spreads bare across his lap. Thinner, yes, but with strength regained, a fire in him stoked hotter than even when Will bent Matt nearly to his knees and whispered wishes for death. Firm hands follow the dark hair up Will’s thighs to the thick thatch between his legs, fingers curling around his hardening cock with a wordless moan as Will rubs into the cavern of his hands, and pushes him back onto the bed.

Will worships in his own way, the body that so willingly would kill for him, that so willingly got hurt, went to prison, broke out of it for him. He caresses the valleys and rises of the muscles over Matt’s stomach, bends to press his lips, uncaring for the blood, to his nipple to suck. One hand moves to Matt’s hair to bend him backwards, to arch him more so Will can kiss his neck, behind his ear, the sharp point of his jaw with a groan of his own as Matt’s hands tighten against him where they touch.

It should not be this easy, to immediately fall back to this, it should not feel so natural.

Will whispers, a curse perhaps, a prayer, something else entirely and it doesn’t matter, because Matt doesn’t hear it, just feels the tickle of breath against his skin as Will does. And then Will leans, up and over and reaches for something in the drawer on his nightstand. This is not something they have done before, never fully, never properly in prison. Fingers and seeking tongues but never this. Will bends to swallow Matt’s moan, closes his eyes as Matt does, as he flicks the little bottle open with his thumb and slicks his fingers.

Without reservation, Matt stretches his legs across the tangled sheets. His body is darkened with dirt from having walked the days it took to get here, and a self-consciousness swells in him for a moment at appearing somehow less than whole. But when Will’s eyes seek his own, meeting only for a moment before parting again - when Will’s fingers slip inside him and Matt curves from the bed with a groan, he knows the shape of the emptiness that was inside of him by feeling it filled.

He wasn’t sure he ever would.

He isn’t sure he ever will again.

Rough hands snare Will’s hair to drag the man down against him, as narrow hips and a firm torso curve rippling from the bed. Matt digs his heels into the sheets and bends, thighs hard to lift himself and bear down on Will’s fingers, pushing into him in a way that - no matter how many nights he lay awake trying - Matt could never recreate by himself. Fuck the dirt. Fuck the mess, fuck the bed in the living room, fuck the bullet in his shoulder. Fuck the hospital and fuck Chilton. Fuck the scar and fuck Hannibal Lecter.

They all vanish in a choir of light when Will bends his touch. Laughter shudders between the hand that Matt wraps across his mouth, and the earth slicks clean from his fingers where tears strip it softly away.

More fingers.

Deeper stretch.

Another moaned laugh and Will’s fingers are there, too, peeling Matt’s hand away and pressing his lips to Matt’s instead. He swallows the sound, smiling his own wide, pleased smile, slipping their fingers together and pressing Matt’s hand to the bed. Connected, intimate, together, as Will presses down and Matt nuzzles up.

Two fingers become three, and Will’s kisses suck bruises to Matt’s neck, dark possessive things, missing things, curious things. Finally possible to do it when before it was too dangerous, too fleeting, too cold. He thinks of how he will fix Matt’s shoulder, how they will stand together after this in the shower and wash each other clean of the months they’ve cried and hurt and suffered apart. He thinks of how the next morning he will get to wake up to that crooked smile and sleepy words that he has never heard before, and the feeling pounds his heart to a gallop.

Will pulls his fingers free and holds himself up on all fours, eyes down to Matt’s - forehead to forehead - before he lines up and pushes in slow, careful, lips parting as Matt’s do, neck arching so their mouths just touch, so their breath tickles sensitive skin as they find each other this way, too.

The stretch hurts - Matt would be lying if he said it wasn’t. He’d be lying just as much if he said he didn’t relish every pull of muscle, every clench that mirrors in his teeth with a hiss of breath, every shift deeper, filling him entirely, in pain and pleasure both. There’s forgiveness in this fire, uneased no matter how he squirms or stretches, a sweet suffering that steals a sigh from him as he finally relaxes.

Breathes.

Spreads.

And slips his good arm around Will’s neck, curling the older man closer to kiss him warmly as his cock presses deep and his hands tighten in the sheets around Matt’s head. A white noise - static, the ocean, pulse and heartbeat - fill his head and push out the thoughts that seek to remind him that he doesn’t deserve this, that he doesn’t deserve Will.

He never has, and yet -

And yet -

A curse breaks laughing from Matt as Will - already buried inside him - bucks his hips to drive a little deeper, again and again, as if he hadn’t already pushed inside of Matt as far as he could - as if he hadn’t already filled him heart and body and mind. He slips a long leg around Will’s waist and the other loops around his leg, and with his stomach so tight the ridges of his muscles show, Matt rocks himself upward off the bed, neck bent as he pushes to his shoulders, and strong legs hold him tight against Will’s body as a moan breaks rapturous and proud from his crooked grin.

Will presses a grin against Matt’s neck and gives him – them both – time to get used to this exquisite pressure, this beautiful connection they have both been aching for all the times they couldn’t have it.

Now they can.

Now they do.

Will keeps it slow, turning with breathless sounds against Matt beneath him as he works into his body, out of it again. Bright eyes to light ones and Will smiles, the most disarming, free, blissful expression he has ever offered Matt. It’s a forgiveness, an allowance, a pleasure entirely as they sink together and Will kisses him again, hands supporting them until Matt pulls more of Will’s weight atop him and Will just rocks, trapping Matt’s cock between their stomachs. One hand tangles with Matt’s, and the other curves over his scalp to tug his hair.

It feels good. Whole. Utterly complete.

And then Will moans his name and the rest of the world shatters to echoes and warmth.

As tears slip unabashed and unabated across his cheeks, Matt laughs against Will’s throat. His teeth snare familiar skin, lips closing against it, marks darkening until Will squirms and mutters grinning at him to stop and Matt doesn’t, even then, and Will is glad for it, even then. Matt has always been an unwieldy partner, too strong for his own good, too lean to keep hold of, too much energy to contain and focus. He juts his hips up and rolls Will to his back, turning him easily and spreading his legs wide as he sits upright and rocks back on Will’s cock.

A steady rhythm, the endless sea of muscles shifting in tidal pull beneath skin made pale from lack of sun. A low groan from somewhere deep inside the man, resonating down his arms to where Matt curls his fingers sharp against Will’s chest. Fingertips glide in supplication over Will’s body, across the scar in his shoulder, over the one in his belly, and Matt hesitates on neither. Why should he linger, when each is as much a part of the man as any other stretch of skin? Why should he envy their permanency, when it’s Matt who once again finds himself watched with blue eyes as warm as summer sky?

He drags the back of his hand across his eyes and only recognizes his own hardness - rather than that pressed inside him - when Will takes his cock in hand. A gasp sucks past parted lips but Will quiets him, stroking in slow rhythm with the rise and fall of Matt riding him. There is blood between them, drying brown down Matthew’s chest, but hasn’t there always been? And so long as it’s Matthew’s and not Will’s, does it really even matter?

A pull and twist of his wrist as Will arches up, pushes deeper and watches Matt respond. Full body shivers, parted lips and the greatest pleasure in just taking, everything Will gives him by choice, by want, because they can, now.

And it's Will who whimpers first, who grits his teeth and arches his neck, flushed with pleasure and new bruises bitten into him. Will who laughs, lips tilting high and spreading wide, Will who sobs gently before blinking his eyes open and stroking Matt faster, rocking his hips up harder as he holds his eyes on Matt, just on him.

With a smirk, Matt tenses his muscles and Will cums, hard and hot, entire body shaking in pleasure as he worships Matt’s name with moans and breathless whines. He looks euphoric, angelic, entirely beautiful. Though, in truth, Will has never been anything less.

He runs the side of his thumbnail just under the head of Matt’s cock and pulls his pleasure from him as well, hot bursts over his heaving chest before Matt bends and kisses Will again and he spreads his clean hand over Matt’s face and holds him close.

They are joined together with semen and sweat, bodies and breath, mouths and moans as each settles into the other as Matt imagines they might once have been, aeons ago before spiteful gods split them apart. Little hitches catch between his kisses, and when Matt lifts a hand to wipe the hot wetness from his eyes, Will holds his hand and stops him to see. To know.

The only person who ever has. The only one who’s taken the time to look past edifice and artifice and see Matt as he truly is.

There is unspeakable gratitude in their gaze, one for the other and the other in kind, and Matt slips himself from Will only to lay beside him, so that their bodies can press together as they once did in a little cot, late at night in silence that they no longer have to keep.

Matt’s voice cracks when they rest their brows together, and he whispers only, “I missed you.”


End file.
